2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

Nash also helped usher in the worked shoot era in 1995 on Raw, one night after he lost the WWE title to Bret Hart at the Survivor Series. He identified Vince McMahon as the man who ran the WWF, which had never happened on-camera to that point, and brought up other real-life situations in his promo. He also, as far as I can tell, was the first major star to court only certain fans in the audience that night by saying he'll only slap hands that have black leather gloves on. You can make the case he was pro wrestling's first tweener.

So mix that in with being an original member of the definitive invasion stable, and it's not unfair to say that he's one of the most influential wrestlers in the modern era, even understanding that he kinda sucked pigeon cock in the ring.

 

With all the craziness on Raw, SmackDown is such a letdown right now. It's boring. Sure, there are some fine matches, but I need some kind of story build up. Randy Orton and his hobo beard as the WHC just doesn't do it for me.

The preview for Monday's Raw makes it pretty clear that Punk is out of the title picture. The hype of the commercial is for Punk/Nash, then Del Rio/Cena. Will Punk even get his rematch? And how foolish was it for him to go over Del Rio so easily a few weeks ago if they actually book those two again? And Cena's rematch? Yep, triple threat at Night of Champions, unless they hose Punk and have him job his rematch on Raw in a week or so.

 

If they're smart, they let this Punk-Nash thing play out for a while (And, btw, is there any doubt it's Stephanie that sent the text to Nash to take care of Punk?) and then have Punk demand his rematch after it fizzles out.

 

That sounds plausible to me. It definitely wasn't Triple H, given how heavily they played that up on Raw.

 

Relatively speaking though, Diesel wasn't even that bad in the ring. Generic big guy move set, but he is so damn tall and big that he does seem pretty imposing. I doubt he ever had a great match, but his title matches were mostly serviceable to good, if I remember correctly.

He was one of the last of the guys who came up when you didn't really have to be a good worker. A couple years after he debuted, you started to get guys like Batista, who even though they weren't five-star workers, clearly were better than past all-power guys like Nash.

 

Could be interesting to have it be Steph that sent the text, then reveal her as the anonymous GM as well. Let the next PPV go with Punk looking for revenge on Nash, then have him turn to the title for Hell in a Cell and have another match with whoever he faces there at Survivor Series.

 

I think Brock Lesnar broke the mold for power wrestlers. Once you see that, it's hard to go back to immobile guys who can't work except for true physical oddities (Great Khali, Viscera/Big Daddy V). A guy like Matt Morgan, put in Diesel's position, would have had similar success. By the time he debuted, it wasn't enough.

As for the mystery text: Stephanie is so obvious that I wonder if they won't go another direction. They could go the easy route and have Del Rio or Ricardo steal HHH's phone to make the text, since Del Rio was an obvious beneficiary of Nash's attack. Besides that, there really aren't that many people who get a direct benefit from Del Rio winning the title. Perhaps they bring in someone? But who? Did Shane leave on good enough terms that he'd be open to a return as an on-air character? Paul Heyman will always get brought up because he had that meeting with Vince not that long ago. Other than Del Rio, the only logical reason for anyone to send Nash after the winner was that they're working with Triple H or someone opposed to him. Had Nash said he was specifically instructed to attack Punk after the match, that opens up some possibilities (or if he only was to attack Cena).

 

TNA has fired Matt Hardy after he was arrested for suspicion of drunken driven after hitting a tree with his Corvette.

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/TNA_News_1/article_52392.shtml

Remember when Matt was the sane, sober one of the two?

 

Since Jeff is still facing some felony drug charges, I think he arguably might still be the sane one. Still, I'm not exactly feeling a happy ending for either one of them. I thought Jeff in particular was a bad fit for TNA - The WWE is incredibly corporate and political, yes, but some guys need that sort of structure in order to properly thrive. At this point, I wonder if either one of them will ever be on WWE TV again.

Which makes me think of another fun Top 5 list: Guys least likely to ever be on WWE TV again. You can't ever say "never" with a McMahon running things, but my list would be:

1) The Ultimate Warrior. The guy is a fucking nut now, doesn't seem to like wrestling that much and even casual fans know what a freak he is.

2 and 3) Hardy, Jeff and/or Matt. Both seemed to burn bridges on the way out, and given the drug problems both seem to have, I doubt the WWE wants to go near them anytime soon.

4) Bobby Lashley. He sure did drop off the face of the Earth quick. Also another guy who was rumored to be pissed at the WWE, even though they did the best to make him Black Goldberg. One of my favorite Internet memes on wrestling forums was the three faces of Bobby Lashley: angry, sad and confused. It was the same picture for all three.

5) Paul Heyman. He seems legitimately annoyed at them in some interviews, plus it didn't seem like he ever fit in with WWE. Can't see him ever going back.

 

Ken Anderson is supposedly on McMahon's do not call under any circumstances list, which Meltzer said only included Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage. His penchant for mouthing off at the wrong time, combined with his injury history and habit of hurting the people he works with, definitely gets him in my top 5. Even if WWE welcomed him with arms wide open, he'd at best be a midcarder. His promos go all over the place, his character is screwed up beyond all recognition and he's sloppy and dangerous in the ring.

Jeff Jarrett will never be an active wrestler in WWE. Would he and Vince mend the bridges enough to allow him to be inducted in the HOF a few years down the road (either by himself or with his father Jerry)?

Agree about Lashley, though that has more to do with how much his stock has fallen than any drama between him and WWE.

Val Venis, though not a big name anymore, has burned his bridges pretty well with shoot promos he's posted on his website about WWE.

Scott Hall, for obvious reasons. Even if he cleaned all the way up and got into enough shape that he could be an asset, he's just got too many issues.

I don't think the Hardys are there just yet. They're young enough and their name means enough that in the right circumstances, they'd bring them back -- especially Jeff, who with Angle are the only guys who can step in as a top face should Cena or Orton have a major injury that keeps them on the shelf for a year.

I think they'd take Heyman back as an on-air personality, but he wouldn't want to.

 

Angle almost made my list, just because he's been gone for so long and because his medicals at the time of his release / contract expiration scared the WWE off. Scott Hall, I could see him coming back for a one-time "hey yo!" appearance, with no in-ring action. He's already been in the WWE and gained his status there, so they probably figure they can't distance themselves from him anyway if he does something horrible (again).

Jeff Jarrett is a good one. Since he basically founded TNA, they might like him for the pop it would get, a la how they hired Bischoff and Heyman at various points. However, he wasn't anything special with the WWE, and it doesn't seem like TNA is going anywhere for the time being. (They are WCW 2.0, but they don't seem to be burning through money in a silly fashion like WCW did, plus there isn't anything on Spike TV that's in danger of taking that time spot away from them.)

 

Interestingly enough, what led to Nash's worked-shoot promo was a semi-worked shoot (if you can call it that) by Bob Backlund on Nash the week or two before. Mostly, the promo was a work, if I recall correctly, but I always remember Backlund using Nash's real name, which led to this amusing response on commentary by guest HBK and Vince:

Backlund: blah, blah, blah ... KEVIN NASH!"

HBK: I know who that is, right Vince?

Vince: Uhhh, yeah.

This led to Vince eventually saying that his characters actually don't go around with Diesel and Razor Ramon on their driver's licenses (He didn't actually say that, I'm just paraphrasing here), that they actually have real names.

I disagree, that Nash was wrestling's first tweener. There's a lot of guys who can have that claim to fame. Flair, for instance, would get booed in most places when touring as champion, but get cheered in the Carolinas. The Horsemen also, in addition to their heel feuds, worked with the Russians, where they got cheered even though they didn't exactly slap hands.

Jake Roberts, for a brief while, was a tweener before he turned babyface. He had a match with heel Savage on SNME where they both were heels, but Jake got cheered.

Another tweener was Chris Adams in mid-80s World Class. He was a face, then attacked the Von Erichs, then gave a promo where he said he still didn't like the heels, but that he hated the Von Erichs too. He used to come out to "We Are the Champions" and the fans would still cheer their asses off for him. Eventually, he changed his entrance music, hooked up with Hernandez, and became a full-fledged heel.